Year: 2016

We got a Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving. We opted out of the cut-our-own route this year. The trees haven't been in good shape due to the drought, it's a long drive, and it doesn't save any money. So we just grabbed one from the hardware store.

We wanted another Grand Fir, like we had last year, but no one seemed to have them. So we ended up with a Nordmann Fir. It seemed to hold its needles well, but it has no smell at all, and the needles have an almost plastic-y appearance. We're going to try for the Grand Fir in the future (they apparently start stocking them a few weeks after Thanksgiving).

I added some berry-like lights to the decorations this year. I thought they'd look neat hanging from the trellis / wisteria. The effect wasn't quite what I had hoped, but I think I can re-work them next time around to have a better outcome. The picture overexposes the lights hiding their color, so they're more colorful looking in real life.

On Christmas Eve we got the girls to bed and awaited Santa's arrival.

To discourage Heather from diving right in to the living room in the morning Jess set up streamers across the doorway:

Then it was to bed for the night....or so we thought. At about 11:30 Heather got out of bed and came in to our room trying to tell us something, but refusing to open her mouth. She then ran into the bathroom (thankfully) to throw up. Once that was out of her system, she started freaking out about the streamers. She was apparently interpreting them as locking us in or something. We got her back to bed....and then Corinne woke up. And around 4 she seemed to decide she was done sleeping. And finally a little before 7 Heather got up, so we might as well all get up...

Surely Corinne doesn't have the cognitive capability to have been anticipating getting up Christmas morning, but she was definitely feeding off of Heather's energy throughout Christmas Eve day. They were both completely loony.

Anyway, up we got, and much excitement was had. But first with the requisite anticipation-building pictures:

Corinne ignored the shiny gifts and the colorful "Tote-a-fort" and bee-lined straight for the bowl of M&Ms on the desk (with lurking alligator) and starting shoveling them into her mouth (the kid is a chocolate fiend):

Heather, however, knows the routine and went for her stocking:

Gifts were opened, breakfast casserole was eaten, naps were taken, fun was had by all.

Corinne is amazed by a bag of peanut M&Ms

Corinne confiscated my stocking treats

What’s in the box?

Red crockpot!

The barn is a hit

Cozy blanket

Stand back, she’s going to try SCIENCE!

Corinne loves the fort:

Heather helps me open a gift (I think it's Funny Bones!):

Jess got a new jewelry box:

The brain flakes are lots of fun:

Heather, of course, wanted to do some science and try out the first project from The Magic School Bus Science Club (12-month subscription service). We built a model lung (balloon), chest cavity (plastic bottle), and diaphragm (plastic wrap). It actually works too. Pulling the plastic wrap will inflate the balloon. This picture is Heather recording her observations about the experiment.

A nice ham dinner was had later on in the day with fresh rolls, of course, and many dessert options. I had been having waves of mild nausea throughout the day, but my stomach seemed to settle down by dinner and I was able to enjoy the feast.

Corinne was thoroughly worn out by the day. She napped twice, so we thought she'd be up later than usual, but at about 7pm she dragged a pillow up to me, climbed up in my lap, set the pillow on my legs, folded in half on to the pillow, and fell asleep.

Heather loves The Magic School Bus and had been asking to be Ms. Frizzle for Halloween for months. Luckily Grandma was willing to take a crack at making her a costume. And it came out amazing! Thanks, Mom!

Heather wanted to look like Ms. Frizzle in her favorite episode, the haunted house episode about sound. Here is the source material:

And here's the result:

Corinne got to make her Halloween-costume debut in the blanket costume Jess made when Heather was smaller. I like this pictures because Corinne is so excited she's vibrating (since she's blurry, but Heather's not).

Heather was a little hesitant about it at first, but she loved it. And her new "Liz" is one of her core-group stuffed animals now. Liz is always next to her in bed and is always taken out to the family room every morning.

The above pictures were taken a couple of days before Halloween. Here's a day-of picture. Heather's face paint was from the Halloween party they had at school.

I got my ghosties up again and bought some batteries to light them up properly with LEDs. Still needs some work, but they're getting better:

This was Corinne's first experience trick-or-treating. She caught on pretty quickly. As soon as a door would open she would try to climb inside and reach for any candy she could see. We did 5 or 6 houses with her and then dropped her off back at home while Heather and I did some more.

We got most of the street trick-or-treated before it started sprinkling. This caused most people to head inside, even though it stopped before we made it back home. But we were a bit soggy and Heather was worn out so we called it a night.

This was Heather's first year celebrating a birthday around a school schedule. So when I got home from work we opened presents.

(We finally got around to using the cookie cutters to make Christmas sugar cookies.)

The USB microscope camera is a hit. Fabrics are pretty interesting to look at. I found some kind of animal bone in the parking lot at work that we still need to look at which should be interesting.

I put together another treasure hunt this year (Heather was very vocal about hoping there would be one). It wasn't up to the same level of quality as last year's, however, due to the lack of time between returning from our trip and her Birthday. I'll have to try to make up for it next year.

The treasure hunt led her to the garage where she found a shiny blue bike! (After months of lamenting that she didn't have a pedal bike. And she's outgrown her balance bike.)

We did presents first so she would have some time to ride her new bike before it got dark (and apparently this is the only picture we have of her on the bike that day....).

Having been gone for a month she was quite out of practice balancing. We still need to find some time to get outside so she can practice, but it's actually been cold (by Livermore standards, highs in the 50s) and/or raining quite a bit lately.

After riding around for a bit, we went to dinner and then came home for cake.